Both Sides Now
by droidgirl
Summary: AU: In accordance with the fics I've been writing, The Doctor finds and stays with Rose and Doctor 2.0, after Journey's End. Doctor 2.0 is a Time Lord grows own TARDIS despite initial humanity; Rose finds out she is like Jack; what happens?


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Disclaimer: Song belongs to Joni Mitchell, Doctor Who isn't mine...etc.

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_Rows and floes of angel hair  
And ice cream castles in the air  
And feather canyons everywhere  
Ive looked at clouds that way_

_But now they only block the sun  
They rain and snow on everyone  
So many things I would have done  
But clouds got in my way  
Ive looked at clouds from both sides now  
From up and down, and still somehow  
Its cloud illusions I recall  
I really don't know clouds at all_

_Moons and Junes and ferris wheels  
The dizzy dancing way you feel  
As every fairy tale comes real  
Ive looked at love that way_

* * *

It's how he threw her heart back in her face.

The Bad Wolf growled low in the pit of her stomach that day.

When she thought about the lie outside of the chip shop, ("Not you. Never you.") she cringed in shame at her naivete. Nineteen years old, and she fell for it hook, line and sinker. Fell for it over and over in her memories, as she worked her fingers to the bone, clawing her way back to him, only to have him leave her on that beach again. She thinks of the ease he found Dårlig Ulv Strand again this time around and suspected, perhaps he had always known the way. Perhaps he just couldn't deal with humanity, no matter what he pretended.

Coward.

Alien.

She wanted to say she'd never cry for him again; not after he had made her life, her hard work into such a farce.

He loved her; she knew it. She'd always known it. But she had also learnt long ago that the distance between love and the choosing of it could easily be a thousand miles. The problem was...the problem was, she thought bitterly in that ocean breeze, she had been so young and blinded by love, that she had let herself believe that he was above that. That he was better, braver, wiser; an _actual_ Prince Charming who had whisked her off on his (albeit boxy and blue) steed.

* * *

Which is why she never did completely believe it when the Doctor, _her_ Doctor assured her that he was in fact, him. Just in a twin body, but literally _him_. In so many little ways, he was. Still had the mole, she discovered one night while trying to fix a wound inflicted by the claws of a Lynxane (alien with cat like claws and gorgeous, naturally blonde hair). Still talked a mile a minute (though less during dangerous moments). In other ways, he wasn't _Him_. Tiny miniscule ways.

It was the big ways he was quite honestly, his own man. His own Time Lord.

This was the one who had loved her, and stayed by her even when he thought she would eventually age and leave him. The one who stayed, who was brave enough to _deal_.

The one who had lived a bad life, but didn't shy away from it. He wasn't gloom, doom and 'imminent end of the world' because the movie was sold out - which was, she realized, a very, very huge relief.

Yes, sure he was ,_The_ Doctor. He might as well have lived _his_ life before this world. But he was all that and so much more. Which is why she wished he could stop living in the other's shadow, whether he realized he was doing it or not; he deserved so much better, and sometimes, she hated the Original just for that.

Other times, she wished he'd realize that she had fallen irrevocably, insanely in love with him not because of everything they had (well, they-ish) before their first separation; she was in love with him because he wasn't a Prince. Just a very, very good man who loved and treated her more than right in the face of a definite end date, where she'd leave him alone in a foreign universe.

* * *

Then she found out about her immortality. That wasn't so bad, although she had a headache for days after. Trust the Doctor to kill her not with a bang, but with a cork.

In her heart, she learnt to forgive the other. Long life meant one could not afford to be bitter forever. Funny how that works; you don't want to spend eternity steeped in hatred. In her ever lengthening life, she learnt to grieve the passing of loved ones, but never to dwell, with his hand in her's at every moment. It was during those moments of loss when it was clear how much he was _The_ Doctor, who had lived and lost a thousand times over; it was during those times, when she understood with even greater clarity, what a chance he had taken in loving her, choosing her even before he had found out about her...upgrades.

Still. She forgave _him_. She wished him all the happiness he could possibly find in the other universe, and on cold nights in the vortex, she made love to _her_ Doctor without ever once confusing the two.

* * *

It didn't hurt to watch _her_ Doctor beat up the other Doctor. It was satisfying, cathartic, and it was quite a turn on if she were truly honest, but she didn't know if her lover was open to that. Yet.

Which was in no way why she had asked him to stay with them.

Not at all.

Not even a little.

Alright, maybe a little.

* * *

_But now its just another show  
You leave em laughing when you go  
And if you care, don't let them know  
Don't give yourself away_

_Ive looked at love from both sides now  
From give and take, and still somehow  
Its loves illusions I recall  
I really don't know love at all_

_Tears and fears and feeling proud  
To say I love you right out loud  
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds  
Ive looked at life that way_

* * *

He grew up. Or at least, he grew some. She fell in love with him again eventually; how could she not? He was a repentent man, insecure in his place, as if convinced they'd tell him to leave at any time. Eager to learn, to grow, to heal, and she found herself melting because for all his experience and his centuries, he was _so_ young and vulnerable. She wondered how she had missed all of that before, turning him into this wise and amazing man.

She was also intensely aware of his lingering touches, his constant awareness of her physical state. His vigilance, in case she was ever in the path of danger. His ever present longing.

Immortal, unkillable yes. Impervious, no. She was not proof against him. However, never once was she guilty because she considered herself untrue to the Second. If she loved either less than the other, it was by such a miniscule measure, it made absolutely no difference. She was a woman in love with two of the same creature.

The two men grew to respect each other; even like each other. It was probably an ego boost thing, to know that both were just so insufferably brilliant, and grew from the same bloody tree. It seemed perfectly natural therefore, to invite the First Doctor into their bed one day, after a long struggle with an army of murderous badgers. Sexually, the two of them took to each other easily...obviously, that would have been the case either way. They knew what each other liked; they knew where to touch, where to elicit that gasp. They both took intense pleasure in making her squirm and moan.

Sexually, it was bloody fantastic.

She could not help but wonder occasionally, as she lay between them, arms and legs tangled, that if they bore this arrangement just for her. If they shared her because it was what she needed. As human hearts were wont to be however, she found herself too selfish to ever say anything about it.

Then they woke up, hands moved everywhere, tongues danced over naked skin and it was all forgotten.

* * *

_But now old friends are acting strange  
They shake their heads, they say Ive changed  
Well somethings lost, but somethings gained  
In living every day_

_Ive looked at life from both sides now  
From win and lose and still somehow  
Its life's illusions I recall  
I really don't know life at all  
Ive looked at life from both sides now  
From up and down, and still somehow  
Its life's illusions I recall  
I really don't know life at all_

* * *

Time passes, and she loses one of him to a regeneration. He's more handsome than before, and looks younger than ever. People mistake him for their teenage boy toy purchased off some pleasure planet, rather than their actual lover, and they all get a kick out of it. Better than the looks of wariness when they suspect incestous twins and their harlot anyway. The other Doctor simply begins to get more lines around his mouth and lines over the centuries, borne of laughter and happiness.Only the faces change, she remembers; everything else stays the same.

It is with a cold, creeping feeling, like ice water trickling down her spine, when she begins to realize that she will probably outlive both of them.

One of the Doctors had explained once, that Jack did age despite his inability to be killed by physical means; slowly, but he aged indeed.But not fast enough for anyone to tell in the next millenium, and she would probably be the same.

Was the second Doctor on his first regeneration, she wonders, or on his eleventh? Could she keep the other safe enough so she'd never lose him?

Some days when she awakes and studies herself in the mirror, at her unchanging features, she thinks about finding another ship to bear her away; better yet, she thinks, she'll steal the other TARDIS locked away in a closet aboard the ship, the one she knows her first Doctor will never use again. She doesn't know how she will go on when she loses them both one day, one by one or together. They age well, but they're not like her, immune to bullets, lasers and blades.

She's not sure at all that she wants to find out.

She realizes too late, that she's far more similar to her First Doctor than she ever realized, and while he grows up, she only grows more afraid. If they see it in her eyes, they don't say anything. Her First Doctor especially, watches her in quiet contemplation more and more, as he recognizes that same inflection in her eyes that he wore in his for so long.

* * *

And so she waits, for her own, her one and only heart to make its decision; she waits for the future to come, and she will hate herself for breaking some or all of their hearts on that day it arrives, one way or another.

She waits for the Bad Wolf to finally consume her and all that creates her, as it has been doing slowly all of her life.

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END NOTE: I'm aware this was a terribly vague story end, and sort of angsty. I apologize. I just can't help but write this...Rose character has always been on the naive side, and I just thought that maybe she needed to 'walk a mile' in his shoes. I like her, obviously, and think she's a strong character...but I also couldn't resist writing this because I found the song apt for a situation like this.

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End file.
